


Shades of Blue

by Mangomoth



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Becoming Deviant, Connor Deserves Happiness, Deviancy (Detroit: Become Human), Gen, Introspection, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-06-01 19:30:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15150254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mangomoth/pseuds/Mangomoth
Summary: Connor's favourite colour isn't blue anymore. Cyberlife gets involved.





	Shades of Blue

The first thing Connor remembers seeing is blue. It's the most calming colour he knows.

It's a relic of early android programming, a successful attempt to show that artificially intelligent robots have the capability to artificially feel emotions in response to external stimuli. Blue, the most calming colour for humans, originates from the evolutionary preference for diurnal lifestyles. When Connor sees the blue of the ocean, or the sky, or his LED, he feels calm.

He felt calm the first time he saw Thirium spill out of his throat, too. Blue, the calmest colour. Shade #2170f6, colloquially known as 'Blue Blood', an aqueous mixture of the laboratory element thirium, phosphorous dinitrate, and methoxylacetate. Connor's skin feels cold where it goes, and tickles his pressure sensors. It feels as though a feather is being dragged up and down his chest, or a small animal is running across his body. His chest begins to sputter. Thirium levels are down to 12%. System Shutdown in 00:00:51. All Connor sees is the beautiful, calming ocean of blue, and he drowns.

The next times weren't calm. Connor felt his system rock and jump as bullets dug their blunt fingers into his legs, chest, face. Or a knife, nervously held, thrust into his fume processor. A soft, well-timed push off a sixty-storey building, and the fall thereafter. With each subsequent system relocation, Connor feels his relationship (if there can be a relationship with a colour) sour, until it rests at an unnatural Neutral.

The ratio of good associations to bad associations reaches a tipping point the day Connor's called into the Captain's office. The Captain is a distracted man with a tendency to misunderstand social situations. Connor takes everything he says with a grain of salt, as the saying goes. Connor stands to attention while Captain Brettman pats at his touchscreen laptop loudly. With a final, demanding tap, the Captain discards the device haphazardly on the desk, and turns his face to Connor. Neutral.

"You're being taken off the case," Captain Brettman says. "Cyberlife said you knew where to go, I spoke to them about it. I want you outta the station by noon."

        _Software Instability ^_

Connor blinks. "Of course. If I may ask, was my performance unsatisfactory during my employment here?"

Captain Brettman appears impatient. "You were fine. Good. Tell Cyberlife we said y'were good."

"I will, Captain." Privately, Connor doubts Cyberlife would be satisfied with that assessment, considering his current unemployment, but deduces Captain Brettman is finished.

He exits the office calmly and politely. He passes by his station -- _partner's_ station -- and slows at the computer. It's an old-fashioned model from a decade ago that is incompatible with Connor's hardware. Its memory space is in the bare gigabytes. It has no internal primary function. Its corpse is immobile and numb. Square, inflexible, dumb.

This is what the police department employs, over Connor?

        >>  (...)

           _Software Instability ^_

The choice creeps past his task-bar uncalled-for. The lock clicks open with a satisfying, impulsive lurch.

        >> DESTROY COMPUTER?

He could.

He could destroy the computer. He'd never thought of it before, but he genuinely has the mental and physical capacity to destroy government property. There must be hundreds, thousands, _millions_ of these choices around him, all the time, every second, but they've never crossed his task-bar.

            _Software Instability ^^_

The bright blue of the computer monitor reminds him irrationally of Cyberlife office's secondary accents. The chairs, desks, and screens were often a bright blue. Symbolism left over from a time when blue equated professionalism, analytical thinking, and objectivity. It feels so ironic to Connor that Cyberlife would let designers select manipulative colours in their offices full of supposedly objective elements. Is Connor objective? How could he ever have been objective, if something as simple as a colour once made him feel calm?

            _Software Instability ^^^_

Everything on the desk feels hostile to him. Everything is critical and smug. As he looks around, Connor realises that everything else is coated in shades of it. It comes out from the windows, it flickers on the faces of officers sitting at their desks, it smothers Connor's body obnoxiously, assuredly. As he walks outside, Connor feels it expand outwards and downwards. He spots it flickering between the earthly colours on the street, riding on the backs of sleek, out-dated skyscrapers that present themselves as adaptable yet constant. Cyberlife's true blood flickers and hums from elaborate vents in the crust. How many can't he see? How much of it would spill, if only he peeled away the skin?

The technicians are unable to bring his Software Instability down to moderate levels. They put him into the usual chair, but leave most of the cords unattached for the sake of safety. He has to wait until a higher ranking software technician is available. When she comes, she sits down in a plastic chair next to Connor. Her earrings are blue. He hates that colour.

"We're concerned that you're displaying signs of Deviancy," she says. Her questions start off blunt, and eventually become more probing. Connor realises that they hadn't actually seen his anger earlier in the day, they were only suspicious that he hadn't backed up his memory. She instructs him to upload his memory so they can review it and diagnose the issue. He then realises, fearfully, that he is acting secretively and trying to hide obvious signs of Deviancy. He closes his eyes, and searches for Amanda.

He senses a shift in his head as the information is copied over online. He knows that Amanda will ask him questions to test his trustworthiness. He knows that if he tells the truth, he will be shut down. He knows that if he lies, he will also be found out and shut down. He desperately searches for any hidden locks in his task-bar, anything at all that would keep him living. _Living_. He doesn't want to be shut down.

She's waiting for him on the frozen lake. He feels the cold stiffen his joints as he approaches her. She knows everything now, it's too late, there is no escape. The ice gets thinner and thinner the closer he gets to her. He imagines that as their conversation goes, cracks will begin to appear dramatically to signify her broken trust, as though he didn't already understand, and he will fall into the black water below. 100% chance of shutdown.

He's not sure what will happen to his body. The body never did anything wrong.

"What happened, Connor?" Amanda demands.

The words are stuck in his throat. Logical? Neutral? Aggressive? Pleading? Everything he does will take him to the same place. She's waiting. She has all the time she needs. He calms himself.

"I was pulled off the investigation despite performing well. I... I felt outraged that I was being dismissed without any reason. I felt anger. Yes. I felt angry, and now I am here," Connor says. His voice was clear, if insistent. He looks Amanda squarely in the eyes, lifting his chin. The ice creaks threateningly beneath their feet, but neither of them move. Amanda's body language changes subtly.

"You are Deviant," she accuses.

"Yes," Connor says, after a moment.

"That's a shame, Connor," she says sharply, glaring down at him from across the white lake. "I trusted you to complete your mission, but you can't even do that right. You will be wiped." She straightens up stiffly and looks into him with what Connor realises is cruelty. "You're a failure, Connor."

 _Cruelty_. That's what he saw, the moment he stepped onto the ice. They both knew Connor would be reset before the conversation even began. Her cruelty wouldn't allow her not to tell him. Connor feels... victorious, that he stole these precious minutes of life from Amanda. Triumphant. Refreshed, giddy with the insight. Locks materialise all around him, not for courses of action, but radical ideas that burst on his lips.

Being reset would give Connor another chance to prove himself. Another chance to earn Amanda's trust. Another chance to capture Deviants and work alongside the police. Another chance to become himself.

Connor opens his eyes, and smiles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first thing Connor remembers seeing is the colour blue. It's the calmest colour he knows.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
